STATE REGULATION OF PRIVATE RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS: 'COMPELLING STATE INTEREST' AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT

There has been a large increase in the number of private schools, especially private religious schools in the past decade. Some of these schools have come into conflict with state governments over whether the state has a right to enforce educational regulations upon them. Litigation has arisen from this conflict.;The major cases in this area were analyzed and explicated. The results of litigation in this area have been mixed. Some rulings supported the right of the state to regulate while others altered or overturned state regulations as applied to these schools.;The regulatory relationships of the states which have experienced litigation were apparent from the case law. In order to determine what the relationships between the states and private religious schools were across the nation, a survey questionnaire was mailed to the fifty state departments of education. Responses were received from forty-nine of the states.;The information gathered by the survey on the presence, absence, and extent of state regulation of private religious schools provided a cross-check to the legal research and a taxonomy of the working arrangements.;This study examined the conflicting interests of the state governments and private religious schools in the context of the cases which have been adjudicated. The central issue in these cases was whether the state had a "compelling interest" of sufficient magnitude to override the school's claim of infringement under the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause.;The survey data and legal research were analyzed and it was found that the states which have the most extensive regulations especially in the areas of teacher qualifications and curriculum were the states which have experienced legal challenges. The survey revealed that there is a variety of working arrangements which include no regulations, regulation of nonsubstantive areas, separate standards, or comprehensive standards.;The data gathered show no consistent pattern of regulation or nonregulation based upon geographic area, except for the region identified as the South. In this geographic region, not one state regulated the substantive areas of teacher qualifications or curriculum as applied to private religious schools.